


Out At The Edge

by lateralus112358



Series: Out At The Edge [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:35:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: The quiet life in an asteroid belt.





	

The distant flicker of amber light testifies to yet another eruption on the face of the gas giant. The planet, already made inhospitable by its lack of a solid surface, its enormous gravitational pull, and its toxic atmosphere, still regularly defends its borders through extreme volcanic action. This celestial body is further arrayed against intruders by a massive ring of asteroids; bits of other planets, remnants of past collisions that belt its profile. 

On one chunk of rock near the outer edge of the belt, a large drill held by a metal frame is perched, maneuvered into place by a suited figure. She carefully circles the apparatus, driving the stabilizing rods on each corner of the frame into the rock beneath, a delicate task without any gravity. Once the drill is set, she will engage it and let the machine handle the laborious business of boring into the center of the asteroid so that the minerals inside can be mined. This can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the size of the rock in question. The denizens of the belt are accustomed to a life of solitude, silence, and hours spent inside their small crafts reading old novels. They can talk to one another, of course, through a series of radio relays strung throughout the belt, but after several years most topics of conversation run dry, and communication between the little outposts is largely limited to daily check-ins. Shaw locks down the third rod, and moves carefully to the last one. She’s connected to the craft behind her via a tether, so an over-emphatic movement won’t send her careening endlessly into space, but she’d prefer no careening at all, endless or otherwise.

A voice crackles over the speaker inside her helmet, supplying the only sound on the desolate asteroid apart from her own breaths.

“Good morning to all my lovely listeners out there in the Megallanic Belt! Our host planet is pitching a bit of a fit today, so be careful out there. In related news, our lonely little station is due for a light show later this evening, so if you’re on this side of Megalla, you may want to get out of your hidey-holes and have a look! It’ll be quite a sight. Also, if you’re caught on the other side…“

The voice, high and overly cheery, continues in this vein. Shaw stops tightening the final stabilizing rod, and reaches up to press the comlink button on the front of her suit.

“Ah, it seems we have a caller! Hello, you’re on the air!”

“You know no one listens to this stupid broadcast, right?” 

“Well, it looks like _someone_ does.”

All broadcasts are routed through the belt’s central hub, a station hosted by one of Megalla’s closest moons. Root had been brought out to this station several months ago to to work on improving and upgrading the hub’s communications array, and had completed her task in record time. This had left her with very little to do on the moon base afterwards, and nowhere else to go; the ship that ferries travelers to this far-off locale only makes one trip per year. In her spare time, she decided to run a radio program on the station’s com relay for several hours each day, ostensibly dedicated to supplying the miners spread out across the belt with useful information about asteroid formations, solar winds, and proper mining procedures, but these topics are generally dispensed with in the first few minutes of the program, and she spends the rest of the time bickering with and making overt come-ons to her only listener.

“I only listen,” Shaw responds. “Since no one else will, and there’s always the off chance that you’ll actually say something important.” She resumes tightening the rod. 

“Hmm, not quite,” Root’s smirk can be heard in her voice. “See, listeners, this is what we call ‘deflection.’ Sameen doesn’t want anyone to know her real reason for listening to my show.”

“Please, Root,” Shaw says sarcastically, again abandoning her efforts to secure the drill frame. “Enlighten your ‘listeners.’”

“You miss me,” Root replies. “And you like hearing my voice.”

“Yeah, sure.” Shaw finally locks the rod into place. “If anyone else was willing to sit through three hours of your bullshit, I’d be thrilled to spend that time in silence.”

“Well, your friend Lurch told me that you volunteered to listen to my show. Wonder why?”

Shaw makes her way back to her standard-issue miner’s craft, which consists of little more than a cockpit, one room that serves as bedroom, living area, and kitchen all in one, and a bathroom that’s too small to be considered a real room by any reasonable person. She doesn’t respond to Root, who doesn’t seem deterred.

“It’s ok to admit that you miss me. I miss you too, you know. Plus my bed’s cold when you’re not here to warm it up.”

Shaw, having entered the craft and cycled the airlock, begins removing her suit. Communications are routed through the ship itself as well, enabling her to continue conversing without the bulky apparatus. She responds to Root brusquely, “Could you maybe not tell everyone about our sex life?”

“I’m pretty sure the noises you make let the whole station know about our sex life, Sameen.”

Shaw growls, pulling herself over to the couch, and straps herself in. Zero gravity is fun for the first few seconds, and after that randomly floating through your living space is just annoying. Similar reasons encourage her to tie her hair back in a ponytail so it doesn’t drift up into her face periodically. “Please stop talking.”

“I think you need to learn how to express yourself more constructively, sweetie.” Root says idly.

“I’ll express myself just fine when I get ahold of you.”

“You promise?”

Shaw scowls and deactivates the com. She reaches over to the small bookshelf built into the arm of the couch, and pulls one out. The books all have magnetic strips along the covers, which correspond to matching strips on the shelf, keeping the books from becoming floating obstacles. She opens to her bookmark and tries to read.

Root really isn’t made for this kind of solitary work. Shaw knows she gets lonely; at any point in time most of the station is empty, and the few people there tend to spend the majority of their time sleeping.

The woman is impossibly obnoxious, but her presence does at least break the monotony of life in the belt. 

And the sex is incredible.

Shaw turns the com back on.

“OK, _maybe_ I get bored when you’re not around.”

***

Shaw sits in the cockpit, strapped to her seat, facing Megalla through the glass. A convergence of magnetic anomalies, storms, and seismic activity form an impressive and violent display on the planet’s surface. The rock that Shaw’s ship clings to rotates slowly, so Megalla appears to drift up past her, only to reappear a minute later from beneath the asteroid’s small horizon. This phenomenon had filled Shaw’s first few weeks in the Megallanic Belt with persistent nausea. Now, years later, she barely even notices it. Another flash lights up the surface in green and blue.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Root says wistfully. The base is far enough away that she’s likely watching through a monitor, rather than directly like Shaw.

“Yeah.” 

“And dangerous. Just like you.”

Shaw smiles slightly. “You don’t have to flatter me. I’m already sleeping with you.”

“I can’t help myself,” Root sighs. “I thought you didn’t want to broadcast the details of our relationship to everyone?”

Shaw shrugs. “I guess I don’t really care that much.”

“Great! Because I was thinking once you got back I could tie you up and try out this new —“

Shaw cuts her off. “OK, that’s definitely too far.”

A third voice comes over the com.

“This is much better than rereading Stranger in a Strange Land for the third time.”

“Fuck off, Reese.” Shaw says, without much venom.

“So,” Root acts as if she were unaware of the interruption. “I’ll be leaving in about seven months or so.”

“You got any plans?” Shaw inquires, as another eruption flashes on Megalla’s surface.

“Maybe,” Root begins, somewhat tentatively. “And I was wondering if maybe you might be interested in coming with me.”

“Coming with you where?” This isn’t the first time Root’s made this sort of suggestion. It is the first time she’s seemed serious about it, though.

“I don’t know. Anywhere. We could do some sightseeing. I hear the Orion system is quite romantic.”

Shaw snorts. “What, you think an intergalactic road trip is really my kind of thing?”

“It might be a pretty long trip,” Root says thoughtfully. “We’d have to spend a lot of time together. And I can’t afford a very big ship, so it would be very… intimate.”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely and partially inspired by Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones.


End file.
